


The Conqueror

by whitesheets



Series: The Sea [2]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Drama, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:51:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitesheets/pseuds/whitesheets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irv Ravitz makes a bet with the boys on a hot summer afternoon of 1988.</p><p>A companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3950860">The Sea</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conqueror

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for a while, simply because I haven't had much time to write, and I wanted to explore Miranda through the eyes of those who see and interact with her. And I figured, why not her boss? Miranda/Andy is only implied in this one, and it would make a lot more sense if you read [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3950860) first.
> 
> This spans a period from before events in _The Sea_ to slightly after.
> 
> This is unbeta-ed, so apologies in advance for any mistakes. Enjoy!

_I_

Irv Ravitz makes a bet with the boys on a hot summer afternoon of 1988.

He promises five hundred dollars to the first one amongst them who succeeds in taking the new hotshot Editor-in-Chief of their flagship fashion magazine to bed.

It is a bet he intends to lose because she has an uncanny ability to make him sweat with her piercing eyes and he wants nothing more than to yank that auburn hair and wipe that aloof half-smile off her pale face. Each time she opens her mouth to say something to him, he feels like she knows something he doesn’t, and he  _hates_ it.

She may be a superstar at her job, but she is  _still_ his subordinate and should learn how to act like it.

With every swing of his golf club, he feels the anticipation pool in his stomach. By the time he goes home to Melanie, he wastes no time and fucks her against their bedroom door, ripping her brand new sundress that he paid for only a week ago.

He has never seen  _her_ in a sundress.

When he comes, it’s her face he sees behind closed eyelids.

-

_II_

It doesn’t take long for Miranda Priestly to become known as the Ice Queen, the moniker founded in Elias-Clarke’s very own boardroom after a particularly tense budget review. Joe Preston’s flippant remark sticks, trickling down to lower management with alarming speed.

It has been months and the bet still stands unclaimed. Irv seriously considers throwing in another five hundred – her chilliness is beginning to give him frostbite and he hates the way she watches him, head tilted, gaze icy blue as if she is not afraid of him.

And maybe she isn’t, if the way she argues with him is any indication.

But she’s good at what she does and sales are going up from the stagnancy of the past five years, so he is forced to sit back and let her be. He is not sure if anyone can do what she does, with as much aplomb.

Popularity isn’t what she is, or what she strives for, and surprisingly, her lack of caring for the approval of her peers or superiors makes her all the more charismatic to her staff.

It still irritates him. The further she roams, the harder it will be to rein her in.

 _Runway_ belongs to Elias-Clarke, under  _his_ rule. Not the Ice Queen’s. But she’s beginning to stake her claim, building her glass fort, and hiring flawless soldiers of magnificent beauty.

He increases the bet to a thousand and five dollars.

-

_III_

She marries a lawyer, and the bet still stands unclaimed.

When he wishes her congratulations at the wedding reception, he witnesses something breathtaking – a genuine smile on her regal face for the first time in his life, cheeks rosy and eyes soft. He has never seen her so unguarded before in the five years of their professional relationship, never seen her outside a professional situation.

Until today.

She is stunning.

While no great classic beauty – her features are too sharply chiseled, nose slightly crooked – she still stands out from the crowd on any other day, commanding all attention inexplicably. This is what true star power is, and he wonders if she has ever considered a career in the film industry.

If this was the woman he had met during their first few meetings, he wouldn’t have hated her guts quite so much. She isn’t pinning him down with an inscrutable look, whispering arguments in her airy voice, unreadable and distant. He finds that he cannot dislike this new version of her.

The burning need to invade her land – because  _Runway_ is now hers, according to the gossip columns, and the worshipful minions serving her – and make the Ice Queen submit to him ceases, if only for a day.

“She looks better than I imagined,” Melanie comments, once Miranda glides to another table, new husband on her arm.

He murmurs his agreement and pretends that he hasn’t been watching  _her_  move around the room all evening.

-

_IV_

Streaks of white begin to appear in her dark auburn coiffure, beginning at the elegant slope of her temples, after the birth of her twin girls.

Far from aging her, it makes her all the more striking and keeps the actual number ambiguous. The press seems to be on the same page – as her influence and presence grow, paparazzi try harder to capture the elusive fashion maven, now much more interesting with her inimitable hair. Her Garbo-esque tendencies are becoming as famous as the models she puts on her monthly covers, he’s sure.

She doesn’t bother hiding the white, and Irv overhears her faithful General telling her once that she shouldn’t. Her legendary aloofness doesn’t seem to apply to Nigel Kipling and absurdly, Irv lets himself wonder if they’re fucking.

No.

That’s impossible, if the rumours he’s heard about the man are true.

Sexual orientation aside, he suspects Kipling is a little bit in love with her, the way  _everyone_ is, from her assistants to the security guard at the building entrance.

During their meeting that day, his eyes keep diverting to the white highlights in her hair. He also notices that her breasts are fuller, and realises with some awkwardness that she likely still breastfeeds. Though, a flat belly belies the ripeness her body had been only five months ago.

Heat stirs in his groin and he crosses his legs instinctively.                   

Fifteen minutes in, she quietly asks him if he has a problem with the way she chooses to wear her hair. To hide his embarrassment, he makes a painful comment about how it suits her, and she accepts it with a touch of impatience. He feels a flash of anger that she can make him feel like a small child (why didn’t he summon her to his office instead?) and has a strong urge to put her in her place and show her who she answers to.

The heat grows and his cock stiffens at the thought of conquering the queen of what was once his.

He hates how he simultaneously wants to throttle her and fuck her senseless.

-

_V_

Melanie accuses him of having an affair and he denies it vehemently.

He hasn’t slept with anyone else in years, though at times like these, he is sorely tempted. What point is there to abstain, and still be considered guilty?

Miranda’s charity benefits have the added plus of various attractive woman and those who are especially keen on career advancement don’t hesitate at making themselves visible to him once they are aware that he is Irv Ravitz, CEO of Elias-Clarke. It’s not like he cannot have his pick.

His wife doesn’t believe his denial and tells him that he hasn’t been paying attention for a very long time.

It isn’t true. He has been paying attention – the kids have his attention when they want it and it is not often that teenagers do. He has paid enough attention to understand that.

Although, he can’t deny that he is a little guilty of not paying attention to his wife. To be fair, there is only so much country club gossip he can take, and he has long stopped trying to keep up with the changing members of her social circle.  _And_  he has never been able to tell apart her shoes as much as she can’t tell apart the cars which pick her up from her tennis lessons.

Too tired to argue, he withdraws to a guest room and attempts to find peace he hasn’t felt in a while.

He wonders what it would have been like had he married Jessica Warner from school, if she hadn’t gone and left him to chase after her Pulitzer dreams from the Philippines to Indonesia to Vietnam.

She was all wit and brilliance, unconventionally beautiful in a distant sort of way. He has never forgotten the way her long blonde hair brushed against his chest when she bent down to kiss him, the sharp angles of her cheekbones and the way she liked to wear his shirts and nothing else.

Yes, he is sorely tempted.

-

_VI_

Gossip columnists report on her divorce with a relish, and allege that an affair with one of Elias-Clarke’s board members is the reason for the cited “irreconcilable differences”.

Irv is quite sure that there is no affair – nobody has claimed the standing bet – though, Bill seems to be unusually interested.

The native Californian is built like Cary Grant, and obviously has had his share of conquests over the fifty-five years of his life, so his confidence looks and feels like arrogance. Miranda clashes with him like she’s going out to war, and their explosive arguments spark off office gossip worthy of Fourth of July fireworks. From the way her eyes flash and nostrils flare, Irv has suspicions that she is not beyond putting out a generous bounty for Bill’s life, even if the other man insists that “she just needs a little taming”.

Irv doesn’t tell his colleague that the entire board has been attempting to “tame” her for almost decade.

On a very bright side, he doesn’t enter the boardroom feeling like her prey anymore. She is too distracted to notice that he exists and he takes the time to observe her without the pain of being in the direct line of her distaste.

It’s not as if he has a choice – his eyes (and everyone else’s) gravitate to her on their own accord and the power she exudes is intoxicating. He can understand to a certain extent, how the people who work for her withstand the impossible demands she doles out daily, revering her even if they have to pull sixty-hour weeks at least to keep up.

One day, Bill announces over lunch that Miranda has agreed to dinner and Irv wonders if he has to part with a thousand and five dollars the next day. Trepidation lodges itself in his chest. He has never been good with parting with hard-earned cash, he tells himself.

Irv doesn’t part with his money, but Bill has to part with his model-mistress, who turns out to be the unnamed source gossip magazines have been quoting in articles about Miranda’s “affair”.

Miranda destroys whatever chance of a career in fashion the girl has with a succinct memo. He is not surprised – she  _is_ fighting for full custody of her children, and all the rumours of an affair is threatening her case.

It is the first time she truly blacklists someone, possibly the first time she understands that she has the power to do so.

He knows it won’t be the last.

-

_VII_

When he turns fifty-five, his doctor warns him about his cholesterol levels and blood pressure. The kids decree that he needs to cut down on red meat and seafood if he wants to live to see them graduate college. So he does.

Over a lunch meeting with his most prolific Editor-in-Chief, he regrets his lack of control ten or twenty years back. If he had made better lifestyle decisions then, he wouldn’t be sitting here, eyeing her steak with so much envy that his skin must actually be green.

He has heard that she only eats salmon or steak for lunch on a daily basis, the latter more often than former, and marvels at how she isn’t keeling over from a heart attack yet. While her hair has turned the purest shade of white, the rest of her seems to be suspended in time, and he can’t remember how old she is. He used to know, once, that she was forty-two but he doesn’t remember when she was forty-two and she obviously isn’t now.

How she looks now is iconic – can anyone ever remember Miranda Priestly without her silver halo?

He thinks of a radiant brunette and the smile he has only ever seen once, wonders if her current husband gets to see it when she goes home to him each day.

The only smile he receives today twists her beautiful face into something unpleasant.

“Budget cuts should apply to publications that are making  _losses_. We bring in the highest revenue,” she intones, lips still curved into a sneer.

“While that may be true –”

“It is.”

He winces.

She isn’t wrong. Other publications are bleeding but that is exactly the reason why, in desperate measures to keep them afloat, that  _Runway_ ’s resources have to be reallocated to those that require it most. He refuses to tell her that the only reason why  _Runway’s_ budget is being cut is because they know that the Ice Queen will pull through in spite of it. It truly pains him to admit that none of his other editors can be trusted to still churn out work of stellar quality if he tells them that their budget has been reduced by six-figure amounts.

As far as he is concerned, her self-esteem isn’t in need of any help so she doesn’t need to know that.

At the way she narrows her eyes at him before excusing herself to another meeting, he is sure that lunch has been unproductive for the implementation of the new budget, or his blood pressure.

A month later, the expense report which lands on his desk tells him that Miranda hasn’t kept to the new budget at all. She has also delayed the launch of  _Runway_ ’s online counterpart and digital subscription model a whopping nine months.

He has a routine of telling her what she cannot do, hoping that she listens for once, and knowing that she will do what she wants to do anyhow.

For a woman so volatile, she is remarkably predictable in many ways.

This isn’t like any other year, though. Two publications have folded in the last six months, and two others are in the midst of downsizing after years of falling profits. The new millennium isn’t friendly to traditional publishing and digital ad space doesn’t yet generate as much revenue as traditional print. The board breathing down his back on the depressing outlook of many of their publications is a sure path to fatal cardiac arrest.

Evidently, her blatant disregard for instructions is the consequence of having been given too much freedom in the early days.

It is not the first time he is regretting it, but it’s the first time he intends to do something about it.

-

_VIII_

On the day  _Runway.com_ goes live, the site receives over two hundred thousand unique visitors.

He knows exactly why – the marketing team (spearheaded by Miranda, since the woman has redefined ‘micromanaging’) has practically turned a box-office darling into a 90-minute long  _Runway_ ad, with inspired product placement. He was at the opening of the film, and each time the fashion-obsessed protagonist referred to her “fashion bible”, he was forced to admit that Miranda had been right. The final scene, where the girl checks  _Runway.com_ to find her debut article featured front and center has to be the most brilliant idea of all.

The real site wasn’t live yet at the time, and sitting in the darkened room, he could only imagine the number of fashionable eyeballs which would have seen the silver-screen preview of the real thing.

Ingenious.

It almost makes him rethink the plans he has set in motion, and then he remembers how she glowed brighter than the stars of the film that night. He had been torn between wanting to bend her over his desk and throwing her out the window to get rid of the smug look she dared to give him.

Jacqueline Follet inspires no such conflict within – she is an atypical Frenchwoman, with flamboyant clothes and sporting white streaks in her hair that invoke a sense of nostalgia for the mid-nineties in him. Chatty and eager to please, Follet is a complete contrast to the woman she is supposed to replace. Perhaps it will loosen up the culture in  _Runway_  and open the way for more collaborative working, instead of the authoritarian rule of its current head. She is the sort of woman he knows the board will like, non-confrontational and blasé for the most part.

More importantly, she knows her place and understands the simple concept of taking instructions from a superior.

Follet visits New York, and his hands dampen when they step onto the  _Runway_ floor. It feels ludicrously as if he is parading a new secret mistress in front of a long-time lover and he prefers if the two women don’t meet. But he doesn’t want to fuck the Frenchwoman and Miranda isn’t his lover, so both editors exchange false niceties and tell each other how happy they are to see each other.

Each time he imagines  _Runway_ without the Ice Queen, something quivers in his stomach.

He doesn’t know if it’s anticipation of a conquest of old land once lost, or just cold dread.

-

_IX_

She calls him at eight on a rainy Parisian morning, and invites him to her suite for breakfast and a tête-à-tête.

He has half a mind to say no – unlike the  _Runway_ crew, he has only touched down in the French city last night, for the sole purpose of today’s lunch, and has had no more than four hours of sleep.

He doesn’t say no.

When she opens the door, he sees the predatory gleam in her eyes and knows that  _she_ knows.

And he should have seen this coming but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

There is breakfast, and he barely touches the food she has ordered for him, preferring to watch her eat her eggs in neat, small bites. He tries not to shift uncomfortably under the palpable tension in the room.

“You know Irving,” she begins, glibly, taking a sip of her water. He  _hates_ Irving, and she is well-aware of it. “I have never been a fan of mincing my words.”

“Obviously,” he mutters, reaching out for his own glass of water to ease the sudden dryness in his throat.

“So you will do well to be honest with me about what you want for once,” she says, and stands.

He mirrors her actions automatically, confused, until he sees her shrug her blazer off, leaving it on the arm of a lone chair. His feet start moving once she disappears into the bedroom, and he finds himself hovering awkwardly at the threshold of the doorway as she unbuttons a crisp white shirt.

A flash of nude lace sends a sharp sliver of want through his body and he takes several large steps without hesitating, roughly pushing her down onto an unmade bed. She reaches up in a motion to push him away but he pins her wrists above her head – he is physically stronger and it is a powerful feeling.

She must have noticed it, because her mask of indifference slips for a split-second, eyes flashing in momentary fear. The satisfaction rips through him with a throbbing pleasure. He will make her understand that her fort still sits on his land, even if her people falsely believe her to be the undisputed ruler.

Without removing her skirt, he presses her down against the sheets and takes her roughly. She stares back at him unflinching, armour raised, protecting, hiding. Her silence drives him to slam harder into her, wanting to see her shatter, willing her to surrender. Even if her body is at his mercy, she taunts him from behind strongly fortified walls and he is alone on the battlefield.

He finishes quickly and she barely waits a minute before pushing herself out from under his weight.

Without a word, she picks up her clothes and retreats to the adjoined bathroom. He takes his cue to dress, and waits for her at the bar, pouring himself a hefty amount of bourbon. Sweat makes his shirt stick to his skin, but other things on his mind keeps the discomfort from bothering him too much.

Fifteen minutes later, she reemerges, immaculate and unfazed, and slides a slip of paper under his nose.

One look is all it takes for him to grasp the magnitude of what she’s doing. He may have conquered her, but there is a long list of people who will march for her, soldiers who will commit mutiny if she asks – and he knows that Jacqueline Follet inheriting a kingdom stripped bare of its most talented knights is destined to failure.

Midway through, her assistant interrupts, knocking at her door incessantly, and he sees the desperation in the girl’s eyes. She’s trying to say something, but Miranda doesn’t give her a chance.

“Don’t you want to hear her out?” he can’t resist asking once the door is shut.

“I don’t need to,” she says, flatly.

Lunch goes on as she has planned and when she speaks from the podium, pale skin glowing like a distant star, he can’t stop thinking about how she smells, how she feels around him.

Before she leaves the room, half-an-hour before the event ends, she stops by his table.

“I wonder how it works, losing a bet to yourself,” she murmurs, and he hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels.

“Miranda,” he says, tightly.

“Just keep in mind the inflation rate,” she retorts, and walks away, assistant faithfully in tow.

\-                                                                                                                                                 

_X_

He doesn’t see her for a full month after Paris.

She isn’t avoiding him more than usual, because if she is, he will know. After two decades, her tactics of stalling him are as familiar as the blues of her eyes.

Instead, he is the one avoiding her, like a coward, because he doesn’t know what to say,  _if_ there is anything to say.

Until the monthly review comes up, and she appears in the boardroom ten minutes early, catching him alone.

She must have just returned from a meeting out of office. From the way her hair frames her face, the wind has touched what nobody else can, slipping through and loosening snowy locks of hair. It occurs to him that he has never touched her hair and has no idea how it will feel like between his fingers.

“Irv,” she acknowledges, and then takes a seat at the far end of the oak table.

He runs through a dozen responses in his head, but before he has the time to say anything, the others begin to trickle into the room, the moment lost.

She justifies her spending for the month, and manages to keep a group of middle-aged men awake through performance charts and fashion trends, delivered in her soft, melodic voice which by right should have put them all to sleep. She asks for money for digital content that is more expensive to produce and looks ready with a retort when Irv opens his mouth. It’s so  _normal_ that for a brief moment, he forgets that he has ever touched her.

He is probably going to shock her into a stroke by not rejecting her request outright but he just needs to see a sample of the deliverables. It isn’t too far-fetched, considering the amount of money she is asking for.

“I’m not against this,” he starts, and sees her eyebrows shoot straight up.

“You’re not,” she repeats, narrowing her eyes, clearly trying to read him.

He forges on. “I’d like to see exactly what  _Runway_ is aiming for and iron out a few details before a decision can be made. Maybe we can set a meeting – ”

“Fine,” she interrupts, no doubt irritated at the implication that he doesn’t trust her judgement. But this is new media she’s talking about, and if he is honest, he can’t tell the difference between YouTube or MyBook or whatever else his kids talk about nowadays.

He can still feel her eyes on him, long after they move on to the next item on the agenda.

Her assistant arranges a meeting for the next day. He’s half-surprised at how willing she is to meet his demands, especially after what happened in Paris with the knowledge that she must have always known about the bet. He decides that this time, he will apologise to her for it.

Unlike the monthly review, she appears fifteen minutes late. He stands to greet her, but she strides straight over without pleasantries, dropping a slim folder onto his desk before pushing him back down onto his chair.

“Miranda – ”

“I don’t have all evening,” she says, tone clipped, as she reaches down to grab his groin through his pants. “At least you’re ready.”

Blood pounds in his ears as her fingers unbutton his pants and a cool hand slips into his boxers. Stunned at the turn of events, he barely registers what she’s saying, until she stops moving her hand and squeezes tight.

“What?” he gasps.

She rolls her eyes impatiently. “You will not cut my budget for the next quarter,” she declares. “You will give me what I asked for.”

“Ah – ” He can’t speak, not with the way her fingers have started moving again.

“This is what you want, isn’t it? The details you need to iron out.” Her voice is so cold it seeps right into his chest.

He wants to say no, because it is mostly true. This isn’t what he was asking for. But the words catch in his throat as she hikes up her skirt and straddles him with a poise that should be illegal. The last thing he wants now is for her to stop so he doesn’t protest.

“You couldn’t have been more obvious even if you tried,” she continues, ignoring his inability to speak. “I suppose that it’s my fault, I started it. But nothing is beneath you, I see,” she mutters, and sinks down onto him, taking his entire length into her tight heat.

She is wrong, he thinks, but when she moves her hips, he knows that she is right.

This is exactly what he wants.

-

_XI_

Every morning, he reads the news at breakfast and the headlines of Melanie’s preferred literature across the table. Miranda has appeared as a subject a few times in the past few weeks since the news of Stephen’s departure hit the stands and he wonders if he is the cause of it. Did her soon-to-be ex-husband somehow find out about her transgression in Paris?

It’s not something he will ask her, and it’s not information she will volunteer, so he’s left with wondering and leaves for the office each day hoping that he will see her.

She may have initiated the first two encounters, but he takes control after that.

A late meeting gives him the opportunity, and when she reaches over to pass him several revised budget sheets, he touches her wrist instead. The tenseness in her posture is immediate, though her face remains carefully blank, imaginably considering the consequences of rejecting his advance.

He decides to make the choice obvious, although his heart pounds hard in his chest.

“Consider this approved,” he says, taking the piece of paper from her grasp. It’s horribly cliché, like a scene from a B-grade film.

She stares at him for a long time, and finally averts her scrutiny past his shoulder to the New York skyline outside his window.

“If I don’t?”

He shrugs noncommittally, not stupid enough to make any overt suggestions aloud.

“I can’t stay long, my girls are waiting for me tonight,” she says, and he tastes the victory of conquest before he tastes the sweet-saltiness of her skin.

It doesn’t take long for him to become addicted to the way she moves, the feel of her breasts underneath his palms and her distinctive scent. At the same time, he hates her stony silence, the chill of her gaze burning through his soul.

He prefers taking her on or over one of their desks, where he can’t see her eyes and can only feel the heat of her body against his, around him, all engulfing. The most he hears are gasps, and even then, he cannot tell for sure if she makes them out of pleasure or something else entirely.

Once, he tries to reach down between their bodies to feel her with his fingers, but she pushes his hand away.

“I want to touch you,” he protests, and sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder since she doesn’t let him kiss her either. He has tried, and she always turns away. She barely reacts to his bite, and he fucks her harder, desperate to hear more than a hitch in her breath. He wants her to  _react_ , wants her slick and wet, wants her to come.

“No.”

She doesn’t make another sound until stars explode behind his eyelids, and then she stills, as if bracing herself for something he cannot see.

To encourage her to come to him willingly, he keeps his mouth shut when she goes over her assigned budgets, even gives her more than what he used to. By the end of the month,  _Runway_ has doubled the number of annual subscribers they have, users wanting access to exclusive web content and the precious  _Runway_ digital archive which houses every single issue of the fashion magazine ever printed.

Maybe, with all he is doing for her magazine, she will even come to respect him one day. His assistant arranges frequent meetings for their collaboration – it  _is_ , in a sense – and she doesn’t even bother with the pretense of arguing with him anymore, submitting to his unspoken request wordlessly each time.

After two decades, the Ice Queen surrenders.

-

_XII_

Her assistant, the one who was in Paris with her, glares at him each time he visits Miranda’s office, even if her lips are curved upwards in a polite smile.

Alison? Annie? Whatever her name is, the girl is obviously inept at hiding her loathing for him, and he is tempted to tell her to pack her things and leave the building.

“I didn’t think she’s your type,” he remarks one day, and is rewarded with a chilly glare. “I thought you hired part-time models to fetch your coffee.”

“She looks  _fine_ ,” she says curtly. She doesn’t spare him a look, adjusting her skirt and smoothening out her blouse with expert ease.

“I have a feeling that she hates me. God knows what I’ve done to deserve it.”

Miranda ignores him, arranging a stray lock of hair back to its rightful place. She’s more comfortable in her own office. That much is obvious. In contrast, he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, watching her ready herself for public viewing again.

“Maybe it’s time for a new one, eh?” he suggests, only half-serious.

She turns on him so fast he actually takes a step back in surprise. The intensity of the disgust in her eyes is searing, hitting him squarely in the chest. Without her mask of indifference in place, he is able to tell how she really feels about him.

She has never respected him. She has barely tolerated him.

“No,” she says, voice so quiet he has to strain to hear her. “My assistants are  _my_ business. That  _is_ all.”

He leaves with her disgust imprinted in memory, and stays away from her for days because he knows.

She hates him.

A week later, she tells him that it’s over in the soft, controlled voice she has perfected over the years.

Blackmail would have made things ugly, and he isn’t stupid. Begging would have been desperate and pathetic, and they are things he does not want to be.

He isn’t surprised, although the bitterness in his mouth tastes far stronger than he would have expected it to, lasting long after the staccato of her heels fades into the distance. He is just surprised that it has taken her this long to end it, and that it is a comment about a common assistant that is his undoing. He still doesn’t know exactly how or why and he undoubtedly never will.

It is only at dinner and drowning in the chatter of three teenagers talking over one another, that he recognizes the unpleasant hollowness in his chest to be loss.

He thinks of Jessica, thinks impulsively of calling her, until he remembers that she died over thirty-five years ago in a city that was still known as Saigon then.

-

_XIII_

Her assistant leaves ten days after.

So he  _was_  right about it being time for a new one, though it hardly seems to matter now that he avoids Miranda’s office like a plague. If  _his_  assistant notices the change in his schedule, she doesn’t mention it, just as how she has never mentioned Miranda’s increased appearances at his office. He hides behind his emails, embracing his cowardice and two monthly budget reviews go by without his attendance. The CFO exists for a reason, and he is content to let him run the show.

Just the once, he sees her exiting the Elias-Clarke building from the backseat of his car, and tells his driver to wait.

She is on the phone, but the softness in her expression tells him that she isn’t working. He reasons that she must be talking to her girls, until he catches a glimpse of a smile and faint colour in her porcelain cheeks that sends his heart lurching in déjà vu.

He tells his driver to go.

It is at a charity benefit for an AIDS foundation where he next sees her, white hair and bare shoulders standing out in a classic black tie event. Her British assistant and a new catwalk-ready girl flank her sides like ladies-in-waiting, and the crowd gravitates towards her like moths toward a flame.

Against his will, his eyes follow her around the room.

He isn’t a conqueror, never has been.

When her sharp blue gaze settles on him and then flits away without a second glance, he knows who is, and always has been.

He wants to hate her but the scent of her skin is permanence in his mind, along with a brunette he met in 1988.

She has built an empire on his land.

And his land is no longer his.

 

_fin_


End file.
